AI Data Boom Drives LTO Tape Revival
Linear Tape-Open technology shipments reached a record 176.5 exabytes in 2024, marking 15.4% growth as enterprises grapple with surging unstructured data from artificial intelligence and machine learning implementations.
The growth represents the fourth consecutive year of increases for tape storage, contradicting predictions that cloud adoption would diminish demand for the technology. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM Corporation and Quantum Corporation reported the shipment figures through their LTO Program consortium.
"Setting a new growth record for the fourth year in a row, LTO tape technology continues to prove its longevity as a leading enterprise storage solution," said Bruno Hald, General Manager, Secondary Storage, Quantum.
"Organizations navigating their way through the AI/ML era need to reconfigure their storage architectures to keep up, and LTO tape technology is an essential piece of the puzzle for those seeking a cost-friendly, sustainable, and secure solution to support modern technology implementation and the resulting data growth. We look forward to introducing the next iteration of LTO tape technology this year to bring enhanced storage capabilities to the enterprise."
The continued expansion reflects enterprise struggles with data management costs and security risks as AI implementations generate massive datasets requiring long-term retention. Tape storage offers offline backup capabilities that provide protection against ransomware attacks increasingly targeting connected storage systems.
"Continued growth in LTO tape shipments shows the important role that tape plays in modern data architectures, especially as companies deal with rapidly growing amounts of data," said Phil Goodwin, Research Vice President, Infrastructure Software Platforms, IDC.
"In fact, tape's unique combination of scalability, cost-efficiency, and cyber resilience makes it a valuable component for enterprises seeking secure, sustainable long-term data storage."
The LTO consortium plans to release LTO-10 specifications this year, offering 30TB per cartridge capacity compared to current LTO-9's 18TB native capacity. The new format will include quantum-safe encryption capabilities as organisations prepare for future cryptographic threats.